She's the new vice-president of the United States. Which is weird, because I thought it was that bloke who looks like Lyndon Johnson crossed with Deputy Dawg? Or is it still the one who can't spell "potato"? But a bloke, anyway. Or did Sarah Palin get in after all? Or do I mean Tina Fey? Can I perhaps stop you there?

Please do. Selina Meyer is a fictional vice-president. She is the eponymous character of Veep, the new political comedy created by Armando Iannucci, which starts on Sky Atlantic tonight.

Oh … I see. So she's being played by Tina Fey? Or is Jon Stewart dragging up? No. No. She's being played by Julia Louis-Dreyfus.

The one who was in Seinfeld? Yes.

Is Seinfeld – the one who played Jerry Seinfeld in Seinfeld – involved? No.

Well, that makes life simpler. So, JLD is playing the VP. That sounds A-OK to me. And which of the three women in US politics is Meyer based on? Hillary Clinton, Sarah Palin or Condoleezza Rice? None of them.

What? How can this be? Well, there's this thing some people have called an imagination.

I don't follow. Rather than simply transcribing real-life speech or reconstructing events, some people invent things from scratch.

Liars! Fiends! Hypocrites! Writers. Iannucci is engaged in a particularly sophisticated form of storytelling known as satire.

Huh? He uses characters he has made up to comment on the various vices and follies we see all around us – here, especially in our political leaders.

So who's he taking the piss out of then? Republicans or Democrats? All of them. Meyer's party is never identified.

I hope there's some inventive, The Thick of It-type swearing to liven things up. Meyer gets her speech "pencilfucked" – edited to bits – in the first episode.

Do say: "A brilliant dissection of the secret futility of a life led only proximate to power."